It’s incredibly pathetic that it took something of this magnitude to bring me this realization, but my compulsive need to achieve was finally brought down a notch by a near death experience.
Don’t wanna sound like a broken record as I’ve already told the story here a few times, but the short version is that I was really ill and had a tube sticking out of my arm and was still trying to get perfect grades in school, despite the fact that I knew stress exacerbated my symptoms. And one day I was feeling really, really rotten and my mom wanted to take me to the hospital, but I had a test that day, and I bullied her into letting me go to school. After the test I came home and we proceeded to the hospital where I promptly went into septic shock and almost died, and almost certainly would have died were I not already at the hospital where I could get immediate attention.
Needless to say I was pretty horrified that I cut it so close on account of my own bad judgement; I could so easily have died at school that day if the infection were just a little farther along. Opened my eyes for sure. I’m not so hardcore about school anymore, haha.